Introduction to the Works of Famous Taiwanese Novelists(台灣著名小說家作品導讀)

Reading Zhong Lihe’s Novel Lishan Farm from a Postcolonial Perspective
/ Chen Qingyang

Abstract
This study centers on Postcolonial Theory, and revisits the narrative structure and thematic significance of Zhong Lihe’s novel Lishan Farm from three main concepts: cultural hybridity (Homi Bhabha), subaltern writing (Gayatri Spivak), and Orientalism (Edward Said). The research finds that Lishan Farm is not only a realist text depicting the life of Taiwanese farmers but also a postcolonial allegory that profoundly reflects the colonial system, cultural power, and the awakening of subjectivity. Through the experiences of Ah-Cheng and his family in managing, migrating, and failing on the farm, the novel reveals the survival struggles under the dual constraints of colonial economic pressures and traditional moral codes.

On the narrative level, Zhong Lihe employs a “chronological sequence + interspersed flashback” structure, presenting a cyclical rhythm of “dream — reality — disillusionment”, symbolizing the psychological process of the colonized moving from imagined equality, through confrontation with oppression, to disillusioned awakening. The land imagery in the novel functions not only as a resource for survival but also carries cultural and national symbolic significance, becoming a spiritual projection for the lost subject. Through a limited omniscient perspective and internalized narrative strategy, the author grants the oppressed farmer collective a voice, demonstrating a literary practice of “giving voice to the subaltern.”

Furthermore, the study notes that the land reclamation process in Lishan Farm embodies the violent logic of colonial modernization: capital intervenes in the land, local labor is incorporated into the market system, and gender and family ethics reconstruct social hierarchies. The tragedy of “same-surname love” in the novel epitomizes the conflict between cultural power and individual subjectivity. Based on his personal life experience, Zhong Lihe transforms the processes of disease, poverty, and migration into a postcolonial subject’s self-testimony.

This study concludes that Lishan Farm, at both narrative and symbolic levels, presents a historical allegory of “loss of speech and the search for speech”, reflecting Taiwan literature’s self-positioning and subject reconstruction under colonial modernity. Through the silence and resilience of the farmers, Zhong Lihe writes a form of “aesthetic resistance” — on barren land, there still exists hope for the continuity of language and memory.

Keywords

Postcolonial Theory

Cultural Hybridity

Subaltern Voice

Orientalism

Narrative Structure

Land Imagery

Taiwan Literature

Preface
Zhong Lihe (1915–1960), of Hakka descent, was born in Liudui, Pingtung. In his later years, he centered his creative work on rural and local life. His representative works include the novel Lishan Farm, the novella Rain, and short stories such as Native People, Oleander, and Poor and Lowly Couples. Most of his works focus on rural life, farmers, and families.

His life and writing spanned the Japanese colonial period, wartime experiences in Northeast China (Manchuria/Beijing), and his postwar return to Taiwan. Personal experiences, including migration, marriage, illness, and poverty, frequently became material for his works.

I. Summary of Lishan Farm

1. Time and Space Setting
The novel is set in a mountainous farm area in southern Taiwan’s Hakka region, depicting the process of land reclamation, which serves as the setting for Lishan Farm.

The story broadly reflects the author’s own experiences: his family relocated to Meinong Village, Qishan District, Kaohsiung Prefecture (now Meinong District, Kaohsiung City) to reclaim mountainous land and establish a farm. The farm cultivated high-economic crops (e.g., coffee, lychee, banana) and forest timber.

2. Main Characters

• The farm owner (often called “Liu Shaoxing” in the novel) / his son “Liu Zhiping” (or Zhiping)
• Female worker “Liu Shuhua” (or Shuhua) — who develops a romantic relationship with Zhiping
• Other farm workers, family members, and villagers, forming the social network of the farm

3. Core Plot
The farm is purchased and reclaimed by the landowner/reclaimer Liu Shaoxing, aiming to convert mountainous land into agricultural development.

During the early stages of the farm’s operation, there are cooperative and energetic production scenes between the workers and the owner; the novel depicts collective farming, mountain song exchanges, and a rich sense of daily life.

Romance develops between Zhiping and the worker Shuhua. Since both share the same surname (Liu), traditional feudal ethics constitute a significant obstacle. The parents, especially the father, admire Shuhua as a good worker/good girl but prevent the relationship due to the traditional view that people with the same surname cannot marry. To pursue love and autonomy, Zhiping elopes with Shuhua and moves to another region. As a result, the farm falls into failure and decline.

At the story’s conclusion, the once-bustling farm and the hopeful dream of land reclamation are overwhelmed by reality, economic hardship, societal norms, and changes in land/natural environment. Workers return to the farm, facing barren landscapes and reminiscing about the past.

4. Thematic Threads

1. The rise and fall of the farm symbolize dreams and loss, and the tension between land and management.
2. The same-surname romance reflects the conflict between social taboo and personal desire.
3. The collision between traditional ethics, family concepts, and modernization/personal choice.
4. The opposition and integration between rural life, forest labor, and economic development.
5. Detailed depiction of daily life in Hakka rural society, mountain songs, and cultural collective imagery.

II. Narrative Structure Analysis of Lishan Farm

Zhong Lihe’s Lishan Farm (1955) is not only a realist novel depicting Taiwanese farmers’ lives but also a literary work whose narrative structure carries colonial experiences and subject awakening. Although the narrative structure appears to follow linear time progression on the surface, at a deeper level it implies a cyclical pattern of “oppression — struggle — disillusionment — regeneration”, revealing the inner spiritual process of the oppressed in postcolonial writing.

1. Narrative Time and Structural Layers
Lishan Farm employs a composite narrative of chronological sequence and interspersed flashbacks. The story begins with the hardships of land reclamation, depicting hierarchical relations between the landlord, tenant farmers, and colonial authority; the middle section uses the protagonist Ah-Cheng’s memories to trace his forced migrations and dispossessions since the Japanese period; the story concludes with the farm’s bankruptcy and the family’s dispersal.

This narrative rhythm of “entering dreams from reality, then returning to reality” symbolizes the historical cycle between colonizers and the colonized, and also implies the false prosperity of colonial modernization. Ah-Cheng’s dream of establishing his own farm is repeatedly destroyed in reality, creating a structural contrast of “dream and disillusionment.”

Example: In the novel, Ah-Cheng tells his wife, “As long as we are willing to plant, one day we will have our own field.” Yet in the end, the farm is forcibly auctioned due to debt, becoming a tragic outcome under colonial power.

2. Narrative Perspective and Subject Construction
The narrator adopts a limited omniscient third-person perspective, focusing on Ah-Cheng’s inner thoughts and actions, forming an internalized oppressed perspective. This perspective allows readers to enter the psychological world of the lower-class colonial farmers and witness their powerlessness within the power structure.

Simultaneously, the narrative frequently uses reported speech and dialogue introspection, such as conversations between Ah-Cheng and his wife or his restraint and resentment toward the landlord, reflecting the colonized subject’s double consciousness — the desire to be accepted by modern systems while painfully experiencing rejection.

Example: When Ah-Cheng is scolded by the landlord, he can only lower his head in silence but thinks internally, “He does not understand what kind of living thing the land is.” This passage reflects the colonized’s condition of “language being taken away” — external compliance, internal resistance.

3. Narrative Nodes and Conflict Design
The novel’s main conflicts can be divided into three layers:

1. Economic conflict: Rent and labor exploitation between the landlord and tenant farmers, symbolizing the injustice of the colonial economic system.
2. Cultural conflict: Discrepancies between the language, institutions, and lifestyles left from the Japanese colonial period and the local culture of Taiwanese farmers.
3. Psychological conflict: Ah-Cheng’s inner struggle between inferiority and dignity, representing the spiritual struggle of the colonized seeking subjectivity.

Structurally, these three layers of conflict progressively advance, ultimately converging in the tragic outcome of farm failure, forming an inverted pyramid narrative model from external oppression to internal disillusionment.

IV. Symbolic Structure and Imagery Levels

The recurring imagery of “land” in the novel serves as the central symbol of the entire work. Land is both the foundation of survival and a tool of colonial exploitation. Through the imagery of land, Zhong Lihe imparts a “national allegory” structure to the story: the land that is taken away symbolizes the loss of subjectivity, while the peasants’ attachment to the land symbolizes the continuation of cultural identity.

Example: At the end, Ah-Cheng looks at the desolate farm and says, “The land cannot speak, but it is crying.” This sentence is highly symbolic, personifying nature and suggesting the silent witness of historical trauma.

V. Structural Themes and Postcolonial Implications

The narrative structure of Lishan Farm presents a process of “loss of voice and search for voice.” The colonized farmers lose control over both land and language, but through narration, Zhong Lihe enables them to be heard again. This narrative strategy of “writing the oppressed” represents the core spirit of postcolonial literature: giving voice to silenced subjects.

Structurally, the three-stage rhythm of “dream — reality — disillusionment” corresponds to the awakening process of the postcolonial subject:

• Dream: The colonized fantasize that equality can be achieved through hard work.
• Reality: They encounter systemic oppression and failure.
• Disillusionment: In disillusionment, they reconstruct both national and self-identity.

Conclusion

The narrative structure of Lishan Farm is not only a framework for social realism but also a construction of a “historical allegory.” Zhong Lihe, through the interweaving of linear narrative and psychological introspection, reveals individual destiny and national trauma under colonial systems. While the novel ultimately ends in failure, its internal structure contains the “continuity of resistance memory” — even on land that has been taken away, the seeds of language still await germination.

III. Reading Lishan Farm from a Postcolonial Perspective

1. Land and Capitalization/Reclamation as a Site of Power and Economic Intervention

Analysis: The reclamation and management of Lishan Farm is not merely a “depiction of rural life”, but a process of transforming mountains into commodity agriculture (e.g., coffee, fruit trees) and modern farming. From a postcolonial perspective, this is a typical form of “capital/market” intervention in traditional land: the land shifts from a survival space to an economic space, and local labor is incorporated into a larger market with associated technical and pest/disease risks.

• Evidence in Plot: The novel depicts the farm transitioning from the bustling hope of reclamation to problems — coffee trees become diseased, management difficulties arise, and the farm eventually collapses. These economic changes directly alter the fate of the community and families.

2. Same-Surname Marriage Prohibition (Clan/Lineage Rules) as a Conflict Between Traditional Norms and Individual Subjectivity

Analysis: The social taboo against same-surname marriage in the novel is not merely a moral issue but represents a social discourse (customs/clan rules) regulating individual desire. From a postcolonial perspective, such localized ethical norms can be seen as mechanisms maintaining social order under specific historical and social structures. The result is restricted personal mobility and choice and can be interpreted as an expression of “cultural power.”

• Evidence in Plot: Zhiping (the male protagonist) and Shuhua fall in love but are opposed by parents and society due to sharing the same surname. Zhiping breaks with his parents to pursue marriage, ultimately eloping with Shuhua, which causes the collapse of the farm and family structure. This conflict runs throughout the novel.

3. Class and Labor Relations: Structural Asymmetry Beneath Surface Harmony

Analysis: In Zhong Lihe’s depiction, the relationship between landlord and workers often appears “harmonious” in daily interactions (collective labor, mountain songs, shared life). However, a postcolonial reading questions whether this apparent harmony conceals structural inequality (land rights, capital, decision-making power). In colonial/postcolonial economic transitions, laborers remain vulnerable, subject to weather, pests, and market fluctuations.

• Evidence in Plot: Although the novel depicts close relations between farm workers and the owner (scenes of collaborative farming), economic failure (pests/disease, the son’s accident, elopement) shows that workers share external risks with the small landlord, ultimately unable to escape loss. This reflects structural vulnerability rather than an idealized community cooperation.

4. Cultural Hybridity and Cross-Regional/Identity Experience

Analysis: Both Zhong Lihe and the novel’s characters have cross-regional and cross-government experiences (in Taiwan, in Northeast China/Beiping). Postcolonial theory interprets this as “hybridity” — locality is not singular or pure but a mixture shaped by multiple cultural and political influences. In the novel, traditional local elements coexist and interact with modernizing forces (introduced crops, mobility, modern knowledge).

• Evidence in Plot: Although the narrative focuses on village life at the end of the Japanese period, characters’ migrations (elopement, leaving home) echo the author’s own background, demonstrating fluid and unstable identity and belonging.

5. Field Politics: The Farm as a Stage of Utopian Imagination and Postcolonial Collapse

Analysis: At the beginning of the text, Lishan Farm forms a “utopian communal imagination” — a space that gathers labor, culture, and hope. However, under pressures of modernity, capital, and nature (pests/disease, accidents), this utopia collapses. A postcolonial perspective examines how such spaces carry the expectations of colonized/modernized communities while also exposing their fragility.

• Evidence in Plot: The novel opens with depictions of reclamation, soil, and collective labor, full of idealism, but ends with farm abandonment, failure of the landlord’s family, and returning villagers facing desolation. The rise and fall of this space constitutes the landscape narrative of the entire novel.

V. Gender, Family, and Reproduction: Power in the Private Sphere — Political Mapping

Analysis: The family’s intervention in marriage, restrictions on female roles, and economic pressures intertwine to politicize private life. A postcolonial reading examines women’s agency and constraints in this transitional society, as well as how society (clan rules, Confucian ethics) reproduces power through family mechanisms.

Evidence in Plot: Shuhua, as a female worker/lover, has her marital choices suppressed by family and social norms. Research indicates that the author originally planned a more drastic ending (Shuhua’s handling of her child after birth, Shuhua shaving her head to become a nun, etc.), but the final text was revised. This reflects the novel’s treatment of women’s fate and its tension with contemporary ethics.

VI. Disease, Body, and Writing: The Personal Body as Testimony of History

Analysis: Crop diseases on the farm, character accidents, and the author’s own illness (Zhong Lihe’s lifelong lung disease) can be read from a postcolonial perspective as “the colonial/modernity-induced depletion of body and livelihood.” The fatigue of the body and labor loss become a metaphor in the text for historical pressures.

Evidence in Plot: Events such as coffee tree disease and the son’s accident inflict heavy damage on the farm and family. The author’s life also ended in illness, with his writing career accompanied by bodily deterioration, suggesting an interplay between the text and the author’s life and death.

VII. Narrative Language, Local Vernacular, and “Right to Speak”

Analysis: Zhong Lihe uses detailed local depictions and colloquialized scenes to allow rural daily life to “speak for itself.” Postcolonial criticism asks: who is speaking? How does the text grant visibility to local people’s voices, or simultaneously depoliticize issues through literary aestheticization (presenting social structure problems in aestheticized forms)?

Evidence in Plot: The novel opens with concrete local imagery — land, earthy smells, earthworms — which function as a local-context writing strategy. Research notes that Zhong often handles rural issues through “aesthetics and humanity” rather than explicit social critique. This makes the work moving but reduces explicit institutional criticism.

VIII. Text and Authorial Autobiography: Personal History as Part of Postcolonial Narrative

Analysis: Zhong Lihe incorporates personal experiences (family land reclamation, same-surname romance, travel) into the novel, making individual fate a window to understand local history and postcolonial change. Postcolonial methods utilize autobiographical material to trace how macro forces leave marks on personal life.

Evidence in Plot: Multiple studies and editions regard Lishan Farm as a rewriting of Zhong’s personal experience (e.g., Jianshan → Lishan, the author’s romance with a woman of the Zhong surname, etc.).

IV. Chapter-by-Chapter Paragraph Summaries + Postcolonial Annotations

Chapter-by-chapter paragraph summaries of Zhong Lihe’s Lishan Farm, with postcolonial annotations (including key original text excerpts). The author adopts a structure commonly used in literary research articles, balancing content summary with colonial context interpretation.

Chapter 1: The Departure of the Poor Farmer

1. Chapter Summary

The story begins with the protagonist Ah-Cheng and his wife Ah-Mei leaving their dilapidated village, bringing their children to the Lishan area, hoping to reclaim barren land and establish their own farm. The novel immediately lays out the land’s barrenness and the hardships of labor, also exposing the plight of the peasant class under the colonial system.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “They carried their pots and pans on their backs, bringing their children, walking step by step into the mountains, like a flock of sparrows scattered by the wind.”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• Displaced Bodies / Forced Mobility: This passage symbolizes the colonized people’s inability to possess a fixed “home”; Ah-Cheng’s family migration is an allegory of exile caused by colonial land systems.
• Linguistic Deprivation: The narrator uses “they” as a collective pronoun, representing a “speechless people”, implying that peasants are excluded from colonial discourse.
• Contradictions of Colonial Modernization: Reclaiming barren land superficially symbolizes progress but is actually survival forced to the margins of the system.

Chapter 2: Reclamation and Dreams

1. Chapter Summary

Ah-Cheng and neighbors work together to reclaim the barren land of Lishan, and after diligent labor, finally grow rice seedlings. The narrative slows here, depicting their desire for security and temporary hope.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “Ah-Cheng stood in the field, watching the tender green seedlings sway in the wind, and said: ‘This is our dream.’”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• (1) Political Nature of Dreams: This is not merely a personal dream but represents a latent desire for “landlord sovereignty”; under colonial rule, peasants cannot truly own land.
• Land as National Metaphor: The seedlings symbolize national vitality, yet remain precarious under colonial rule.
• (2) Narrative Strategy: The author uses almost pastoral-poetic description to create a “utopian illusion,” foreshadowing future disillusionment.

Chapter 3: Seeds of Oppression

1. Chapter Summary

Landlords demand increased rent, and colonial officials conduct frequent inspections, plunging peasants into debt. To pay rent, Ah-Cheng is forced to borrow at high interest. The narrative shifts to a confrontation between oppression and resistance.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “Ah-Cheng lowered his head, listening to the landlord’s cold voice, as if hearing iron grinding against his own bones.”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• (1) Violence of Power Discourse: The landlord’s language symbolizes colonial authority; the peasant’s silence reflects the “speechless state” of the colonized.
• (2) Economic Oppression and Class Structure: The land rent system functions as a control mechanism extended by the colonial system.
• (3) Internalized Colonial Psychology: Ah-Cheng’s self-blame and endurance are actually products of long-term colonial education, producing a sense of inferiority.

Chapter 4: Debt and Shame

1. Chapter Summary

Ah-Cheng, in order to repay debts, pawned his wife’s jewelry and even sold part of their grain. Ah-Mei’s trust in her husband began to waver, and family conflicts gradually emerged.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “She looked at him, the tears in her eyes like rain blown back by the wind.”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• (1) Family Breakdown as National Metaphor: The collapse of Ah-Cheng’s family symbolizes the disintegration of national subjectivity.
• (2) Gender Perspective: Ah-Mei’s silence symbolizes the female experience of “double colonization” — oppressed both by the system and by patriarchal control.
• (3) Shame and Internalized Colonialism: Debt is not only an economic burden but also a “memory of shame” stemming from colonized psychology.

Chapter 5: Nature’s Retribution

1. Chapter Summary

A torrential rain destroys the farm, wiping out all the rice seedlings. Ah-Cheng watches the washed-away fields in despair, and the entire village falls into famine.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “The water rushed down the mountain like it had gone mad, swallowing all dreams.”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• (1) Symbolic Retribution of Nature: Nature is no longer a maternal refuge but a force reflecting historical violence; in postcolonial reading, it represents the backlash of “suppressed history.”
• (2) Structural Function of Fatalism: The typhoon is a concretization of structural violence, reinforcing the powerless cycles of colonial society.
• (3) Narrative Rhythm Shift: The turn from hope to destruction marks the central pivot of the novel.

Chapter 6: Dispersal and Silence

1. Chapter Summary

After the farm’s bankruptcy, Ah-Cheng’s family is forced to leave. Ah-Cheng remains alone amidst the ruins, staring at the desolate land.

1. Original Text Excerpt: “He bent down, grabbed a handful of soil, but could not hold onto anything.”
2. Postcolonial Key Annotations

• (1) Speechless Ending of the Colonized: The novel concludes with “silence,” symbolizing the irretrievable collapse of subjectivity.
• Land Loss = Historical Trauma: Losing land equates to losing self-identity.
• (2) Anti-Utopian Structure: The story moves from “reclamation dreams” to “historical ruins,” revealing the false promises of colonial modernization.

Summary: Postcolonial Narrative Allegory

On the surface, Lishan Farm is a social realism depicting peasant poverty, but at a deeper level, it is a postcolonial allegory.

V. Comprehensive Analysis of Postcolonial Themes in Lishan Farm

Zhong Lihe’s Lishan Farm is a typical “postcolonial rural narrative.” It not only portrays the living difficulties of peasants but also, through literary form, reveals the deep infiltration of colonial experience into individuals, families, and society. In the novel, land, language, and labor form a symbolic network of colonial power; the fate of Ah-Cheng’s family embodies the colonized subject struggling amid cultural hybridity, linguistic suppression, and emergent self-consciousness.

1. Cultural Hybridity and Identity Fracture: The Illusion of Colonial Modernity

In postcolonial theory, Homi Bhabha proposes the concept of “hybridity” to describe the contradictory formation of the colonized between colonial power and local culture. In Lishan Farm, this “hybridity” is not a cultural fusion but a forced mixture and identity rupture.

The novel is set at the end of Japanese colonization and the transition to the postwar era. Peasants superficially accept colonial modernity (such as land registration, agricultural technology, and taxation systems), yet their lives remain bound by traditional farming and clan ethics. Ah-Cheng’s desire to “earn land through labor” is an illusion of colonial modernity: believing that hard work alone grants access to the modern system.

Original Key Sentence: “As long as we are willing to plant, one day we will have our own fields.”

In fact, this sentence reveals a kind of “educated hope” — the colonial system, through modernizing language, instills the myth of labor-based wealth to obscure structural injustice.

Annotation:

This “colonized hope” represents the psychological dimension of cultural hybridity. Ah-Cheng’s “dream” is shaped simultaneously by two linguistic frameworks — traditional land ethics and colonial discourse of progress — ultimately producing identity fractures.

Structurally, the novel follows a “hope—disillusionment—barrenness” rhythm, showing the internal collapse of hybridity.

2. Language Politics and the Experience of Speechlessness: Silent Discourse

Postcolonial theory emphasizes that language is a carrier of power. Zhong Lihe, aware of the suppressive force of colonial language, deliberately adopts a nearly oral narrative tone and the rhythm of peasant dialects in Lishan Farm. This is not only a stylistic feature but also a political gesture.

In the novel, peasants frequently “dare not speak.” When landlords question Ah-Cheng, he “lowers his head in silence”; when the farm is washed away by flood, he “opens his mouth but cannot make a sound.”

Original Key Sentence: “He wanted to say something, his lips moved a few times, but no sound came out.”

This “unspeakable suffering” is at the core of postcolonial language politics: the colonizers control official language and institutional discourse, while the colonized’s mother tongue is degraded to a “lower language.” Ah-Cheng’s silence is both the result of linguistic oppression and a form of resistance — he refuses to use the colonial language to describe his own suffering.

Annotation:

Zhong Lihe, through “silent narration,” resists the authority of colonial language, allowing the suppressed subject to express itself in a nonverbal form. This strategy of “resisting the voiced with the voiceless” makes Lishan Farm an important “speechless allegory” in Taiwanese literature.

3. Awakening and Resistance of the Colonized Subject: From Disillusionment to Gazing

Although Lishan Farm ends tragically, Zhong Lihe plants “seeds of awakening” deep within the narrative. At the novel’s conclusion, Ah-Cheng stands alone in the desolate fields; although he possesses nothing, a shift in consciousness occurs.

Original Key Sentence: “The land does not speak, but it is crying.”

This sentence is not merely an exclamation of failure; it represents the colonized subject’s awareness of “the land’s pain.” The land is personified as a weeping entity, symbolizing national trauma and historical memory. Although Ah-Cheng has lost the land, he gains a renewed understanding of the land’s importance as the foundation of identity.

Annotation:

This moment marks “subjective awakening”: realizing one’s oppressed condition amid historical ruins. Zhong Lihe allows the protagonist to undergo a transformation from “laboring body” → “silent victim” → “witness gazing upon history.”

This transformation is not presented through revolution or violence but through “gazing and memory” as forms of resistance, reflecting a postcolonial ethic of soft resistance.

4. Intertextual Relationship Between Structure and Theme

The structure of Lishan Farm consists of three stages: “dream—reality—disillusionment,” corresponding to the historical stages of the postcolonial subject:

• Dream Phase of Early Colonization: Belief that modernization and labor can change fate.
• Phase of Realistic Disillusionment: Revealing systemic exploitation and linguistic oppression.
• Phase of Postcolonial Awakening: Recognizing the falsity of the colonial system through failure.

The entire novel centers on “land” as a symbol, unfolding resistance on three levels: cultural, linguistic, and subjective. This structural correspondence represents Zhong Lihe’s strategy of using narrative to confront history.

5. Comprehensive Conclusion

Lishan Farm is not merely a realist depiction of peasant poverty but also a historically profound postcolonial allegory.

• Cultural Hybridity: Demonstrates the identity fractures of colonized subjects between modernization and tradition.
• Language Politics: Substituting silence for language, challenging colonial discursive authority.
• Subjective Awakening: Achieving the return of self-recognition through “gazing upon the land.”

Zhong Lihe, with plain and sincere prose, presents historical trauma and transforms the suffering of the colonized into literary testimony. As postcolonial theory emphasizes: “writing itself is resistance.” Lishan Farm plants seeds of memory and dignity in a land of sorrow.

Ah-Cheng symbolizes the colonized subject, the land represents cultural roots and sovereignty, and the rise and fall of the farm symbolize Taiwan’s hope and disillusionment under colonial modernity. Zhong Lihe wraps “history” in “realism,” expressing the nation’s resilient memory through silence and failure.

Conclusion

1. Cultural Hybridity: Mixed Identities and Cultural Contradictions under Colonial Rule

Zhong Lihe’s Lishan Farm is a microcosm of Taiwanese peasants surviving between Japanese colonial rule and the capitalist farm system before the war. The “hybridity” of the novel is reflected not only in the mixture of language and lifestyle but also in the contradictions of character identity and values.

In Ah-Huo’s experience at Lishan Farm, he embodies both the obedience of the colonized and the resistance of local peasants: on one hand, he is forced to accept Japanese farm management regulations and systems; on the other, he maintains deep emotional and ethical ties to the local land.

Homi Bhabha’s “Third Space” concept can explain this contradictory existence. Ah-Huo’s labor site belongs to the Japanese capitalist economic space while simultaneously permeated with Taiwanese peasant ethical order and interpersonal relationships. This “hybrid existence” is the product of colonial cultural production, making Ah-Huo a “hybrid subject” who cannot fully integrate into the colonizer’s system nor return entirely to a pure local self.

For example, the novel describes Ah-Huo’s attitude toward the Japanese overseer: “He always spoke with his head lowered, yet secretly cursed the feet wearing leather shoes in his heart.” This depiction not only presents class and power asymmetry but also reveals latent resistance and humiliation in the colonial mindset — a “say one thing, feel another” posture, representing the internal contradictions under cultural hybridity.

2. Language Politics: Expressive Dilemmas under the Colonial Linguistic System

Lishan Farm is a work with significant postcolonial tension at the level of language. The characters often think in Taiwanese, speak in Japanese, while the author writes in Chinese. These three layers of language interweave, creating a narrative phenomenon of “linguistic hybridity.”

In a colonial context, language is not merely a communication tool but a symbol of power. Japanese represents authority and order on the farm, while dialects or Chinese become suppressed local languages. Zhong Lihe, through “linguistic dislocation” and “mixed-language writing,” shows how colonial literary creators find spaces to survive within language hegemony.

For example, the Japanese farm owner commands workers to respond in Japanese: “わかりました (I understand),” while Ah-Huo internally curses in Minnan: “明白你個鬼啦！” This linguistic contrast reflects the inner resistance of the colonized. Language becomes a covert site of resistance — compliance on the surface conceals critical consciousness.

This phenomenon aligns with postcolonial theory’s focus on “linguistic politics”: the colonized must speak in the colonizer’s language yet use it subversively. Zhong Lihe’s technique not only reproduces this tension but also opens a path for Taiwanese literature to assert subjectivity through “bilingual narrative.”